Nvidia has announced that it has launched the world's first ray tracing engine – with Nvidia OptiX promising to help developers bring new levels of realism to applications.
OptiX joins Nvidia's other acceleration engines, SceniX, CompleX and PhysX – with all, it seems, containing the X-factor.
The technology, which leverages the GPU, will allow for intricate tasks like examining the way reflection and refraction of light on glass should appear.
In Nvidia's words: "By tapping into the massively parallel computing power of Nvidia Quadro processors, the OptiX engine greatly accelerates the ray tracing used across a spectrum of disciplines, including: photorealistic rendering, automotive styling, acoustical design, optics simulation, volume calculations and radiation research."
Tipping point for GPUs
"Thousands of applications are being created today that harness the phenomenal power of GPUs, a clear sign that GPU computing has reached a tipping point, adds Nvidia's Jeff Brown. Manager.
"The world of computing is shifting from host-bound processing on CPUs to balanced co-processing on GPUs and CPUs.
"NVIDIA application acceleration engines arm developers with the tools they need to further revolutionize both real-time graphics and advanced data analysis."

Chip giant AMD has announced the AMD 785G chipset – which has been designed to be 'at the core of the mainstream PC for Windows 7'.
The massive interest in Windows 7, combined with encouraging pre-orders for Microsoft's successor to Vista, has prompted AMD to push on with a new chipset that is aimed at the 'cost-conscious' mainstream market.
The AMD 785G chipset incorporates the company's ATI Radeon HD4200 graphics technology – allowing computers with motherboards using the chipset to run Direct 10.1 games.
The chipset has been designed to take advantage of AMD's Athlon II processors – giving PC manufacturers, and their customers, a mainstream affordable option that will show off Windows 7 in all its glory come October.
The chipset also offers:

• DirectX 10.1 support for the latest games
• UVD2 for accelerated, GPU-enabled, decoding
• First AMD chipset with ATI Stream technology for amazingly fast video transcoding and application performance
• Advanced technology to keep your PC running cool and quiet
• Latest support for HDMI 1.3 and DisplayPort
• SidePort Memory support for DDR3/DDR2 performance cache
• Hard disk performance improvements with RAID support